Chapter 1
She didn’t lie per say. She just omitted the truth. When she got the text from someone her first instinct was to lie, to save her ass. But it wasn’t just her , not anymore. She had the other girls to think of. “The truth will bury you in a New York minute.” Somebody knew they were in New York and not Philly. Someone knew about Shawna and how she died. Aria killed her, but she knew it wasn’t Aria’s fault. It was hers. This wasn’t her decision, not hers alone anyways.
“Are you Detective Holbrooke?” she asks, her usually steady voice trembling. She feels Emily’s fingers finding her own. She takes comfort in that.
“I am.”
“I think you’ve been looking for me. I'm—"
“I know who you are. I'm glad you’re with your friends,” he glances at the other four teenagers who had been missing for the last twenty-four hours. He looks back at her. She had been missing for two years . She was presumed dead. There was a body . There was a funeral. She had a gravestone. “Welcome home. I'm guessing you have a lot to tell me. Maybe we can begin with the night you disappeared.”
And she told him, bits and pieces. She could feel eyes on her as she told him a different version of what she told the girls. Aria watched with bated breath, Spencer with slightly judgmental eyes, Hanna with an unreadable look and Emily with the compassion she always wore.
She told him about the first A. It wasn’t too difficult to tell, not when the very same A had been sent to Radley for targeting and almost killing her friends. She told him about Ian, they already knew that part. She left out meeting with Jenna, Toby, Ezra, and Mr. Montgomery. She told him how she stole her mother’s pills and drugged her friends—that part gave them all an alibi. She told them how they never woke up, omitting the time Spencer did. She told him about walking home that night. How someone hit her in the head with something and when she woke up, she was choking on dirt under the earth.
She felt all eyes on her.
She didn’t lie per say. She omitted the truth. The biggest omission of her entire life. She left out the most prominent part of the story. She left out how she walked across her lawn and saw her mother watching her in disapproval of sneaking out and then her look shifted to horror. She left out the moment she woke up in a cold hole, dirt being shoveled onto her lifeless body. She saw her mother above her, burying her alive. “What have you done? What have you done?!” Her mother did not check to see if she was alive. She dumped her body in a hole and was burying her alive. She wanted to know more than anything why her mother did that. Who was she covering for? Who was so important that she would bury her child in the backyard and then launch a year-long missing persons search for her?
“Alison?”
She shakes her head, bringing herself back to the present.
“I asked if you know who hit you? Was it Mona?”
“I don’t know. It was from behind.” It wasn’t a lie. She knew it couldn’t have been Mona, but she couldn’t say that without bringing up her mother's part.
“Do you know who buried you?”
She shuddered. “No.”
“Do you know whose body was dug up in your yard? The one we thought was you ?”
“No.” She frowns. That one was a complete mystery.
“Why did you disappear?”
“’Bitch can’t see you, but I do. Tonight’s the night I kill you.’”
“Mona sent you that?”
“I believe so. But...Mona was here tormenting my friends while I was on the run from someone who genuinely wanted me dead. I didn’t think I had a choice.”
There was a knock, and an officer poked his head in. “The parents are here.”
“Who’s?”
“All of them. Hers aren’t waiting.”
She felt panic rising in her chest when she realized what was happening. She didn’t tell them about her mother. She was going to go home with her mother. The very mother who buried her alive. She looked at her friends and saw the panic mirroring on all their faces. She looked at Holbrooke. If he noticed her panic, he must have chalked it all up to nervousness. She had been known as the dead girl for two years.
The door swung enough to make her jump.
“Oh my god.” She was up and in her father’s warm embrace in seconds. She barely even noticed her friends being herded out to see their own families. Emily lingered, eyes glued on her friend before she’s herded out with the rest.
She peered at her mother but didn’t budge even after her father’s embrace loosened and her mother made no move to reach for her. Her mother stared at her like she was seeing a ghost. She had put her in a hole and buried her alive so she wasn’t surprised that she thought she could be a ghost.
“Can we take our daughter home now?” her father asks. It was a long night and his tone told it.
“Soon. Sit, please.”
He tries to maneuver his daughter so she’s sitting between her parents, but she stays glued to his side. He sighs and sits between his undead daughter and shocked wife.
“Do you know anyone who wanted to kill your daughter?”
“We answered these many times before,” her mother finally speaks.
“Somebody hit your daughter on the head. They buried her alive . Now whether it was intentional, or they thought she was already dead I do not know. But somebody fully intended on murdering Alison.” She steals a look at her mother who was ghostly pale.
“You think they could still be out there?” her father’s voice was concerned.
“It is a possibility. You’ll have an officer parked outside of your house for her protection. We’ll need to talk to you for further questioning, but you can take her home now.”
Her father thanked Holbrooke and then they were on their way.
The ride home was quiet. Despite some mild prompting from her father, he stayed silent, head leaning against the cool window watching the dark scenery blur by. Her mother was as silent as her.
She stared up at her childhood home. She was still a child, but two years on the run by herself made her feel anything but. She longed to be young and oblivious again. She jumped slightly when she felt her father’s hand on her back. He led her up the steps and into the house. She was buried alive in the backyard.
“Mom? You’re back? What did the detective say to—”
Jason froze. His mother went to the station hours ago. The detective said he had reason to believe that his little sister was alive out there but the last thing he expected was for her to return with her.
“Jason.” She didn’t expect to see her brother again. A part of her wondered if Jason had been the one to hit her. Jason was always her mother's favorite. She wouldn’t be surprised if her mother buried her to protect Jason. But the fear was short lived. He didn’t look like he saw a ghost. He looked confused and relieved all at once. Her feet were moving before her brain could remind her that she was not a hugger, and she threw her arms around her big brother's waist. There was a moment of hesitation before she found herself enveloped in her brother’s warm, strong arms.
When she caught her mother’s look, she no longer looked at her like she was a ghost. She looked at her like she was a stranger.
****
Her room looked the same as when she left it. It was clean and tidy like a museum. Paris themed, pink wallpaper, vanity with her brush and nail polish. Photos from junior high and freshman year framed, the fourteen-year-old girl frozen in time. She was just barely fifteen when she disappeared. Disappeared. Her father got her situated before going back down. She laid in bed for a while, but her parents’ rising voices disturbed her.
She climbed out of bed and opened the door quietly. She tip toed down the hall. She was in a haunted house, and she was the ghost.
“I don’t know who that is but that’s not our daughter!” her mother was arguing downstairs.
“Did you not see her? That is Alison, Jessica,” her father argued right back.
“Our daughter’s body was found buried in our yard. Alison is dead.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re the one who buried me,” she muttered bitterly.
“What did you say?”
She spun around and held back a yelp. Jason grabbed her arm to keep her from plummeting down the stairs. He holds her arm like she’s a small child. In this moment she really felt like one. He led her to her room, and she perched on her bed. Her arms hold her pajama clad knees to her chest as she looks up at her brother with haunted blue eyes. He looked older, more tired than the teenage partier she once knew.
“I didn’t tell the police," she says defensively, fingernails digging into the flesh of her knee.
He reached and grabbed her hands, stopping her from leaving marks. “I didn’t ask that. I asked what you said.”
“Like you’d believe me,” she muttered.
“Ali.”
“She thought I was dead. I wasn’t.” She blinks against the tears stinging her eyes.
“She—Mom…tell me what happened, Ali.”
“She was protecting someone, Jason. I was walking through the backyard, and I saw her. She looked so upset. But then she looked… horrified . And someone hit me from behind. I woke up in a hole and she was shoveling dirt onto me.”
“Who hit you, Ali,” he put his hands on her shoulders.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “She kept saying ‘what have you done?’ to whoever it was. Who would she protect, Jason? Who was so important that instead of—instead of calling an ambulance she buried me in the backyard?!”
“I don’t know,” his brow furrowed. “We'll figure it out, okay?” She nodded her head jerkily. “You’re not a hugger,” he points out. “Especially to me. ”
“I’ve never been away for two years before. And I wasn’t…I wasn’t the nicest person before either. I wasn’t a very good sister.”
“Yeah well, I spent the summer before you were gone high and drunk the whole time. I don’t remember what happened the night you disappeared.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“I don’t think I would. Can I hug you again?”
She nods and leans forward, sinking into his embrace. He held her like she would disappear if he let go.
She was a ghost in a haunted house. She didn’t know when that feeling would change.